


Retaliation

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 01:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17971775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Or rival news reporters! (asked by darkqueenswan via tumblr)Taking another sip of her drink as she stole yet another glance at her watch and the hectic whirlwind that waited for her outside of the small café she almost sighed at the office building that rose just in front of the small establishment. Humming, Emma rose her brow in anticipation as the door of the café swung open, a brunette impeccably dressed walking in with nothing but fire on her eyes.





	Retaliation

The small café was bathed in tranquil murmurs, the vague sounds of people speaking quietly over coffee mugs a barely-there whisper that didn’t disturb Emma as she kept on stealing glances at her watch, a satisfied smirk on her lips and her notebook in front of her in where haphazardly taken notes stared back at her in a messy handwriting that very few people could truly understand.

She had been told more often than not that she shouldn’t try to make notes via paper; the blue ink against thin white a problem if she didn’t put them on a screen the second she was able to, but the blonde refused to let go of the paper and ink, the aesthetic of it all pleasant to her.

Taking another sip of her drink as she stole yet another glance at her watch and the hectic whirlwind that waited for her outside of the small café she almost sighed at the office building that rose just in front of the small establishment. Humming, Emma rose her brow in anticipation as the door of the café swung open, a brunette impeccably dressed walking in with nothing but fire on her eyes.

Emma had purposely picked the table she knew would be the one new eyes would zero in the second they entered into the café but she still feigned surprise as she kept on taking her coffee -the amount of sugar she had previously put there for it to be drinkable a detail she wasn’t willing to share- while her free hand drummed a tuneless staccato at the table’s surface, next to the notebook in where the blue ink felt much more vibrant than before.

“Miss Swan.”

The few patrons that were seated around glanced up at the icy tone, filled with barely contained anger despite Regina’s intents of keeping it at bay but they didn’t do more than that. Many of them were already familiar to the two women meetings in that same place and knew that there was nothing they could truly do as the newcomer approached the table, hands into fists and her high-heeled cladded feet mirroring the staccato the blonde was drumming on the table, satisfied smirk widening just enough for the standing woman to growl at.

From the corner of her eyes Emma saw Ruby sighing deeply; the waitress that had turned into her friend over the last year she had spent working on the Daily Mirror rising a brow of her own and mouthing a question she couldn’t but chuckle at.

“ _What did you do?”_

Regina Mills, reporter extraordinaire and Emma’s superior in every shape of form if it wasn’t by the fact that any possibility of being promoted was thin at best due to the harsh times the newspaper was fairing, stopped an inch away from the edge of the table, brown eyes smoldering and murderous.

Rising her cup a little bit higher and giving the brunette a lopsided smile as she tilted her head a little to the left, Emma hummed, as if she hadn’t known the woman would walk into the place at that hour.

“Hi Regina.” Free hand finally stilling over the notebook, obvious enough that the brunette’s eyes lowered enough to address it, the blonde hummed as she took a sip of her almost empty mug, quickly placing it next to the scribbled words. “Is your lunch hour already? Funny how time works.”

At any other time, the brunette would probably have answered to that, a scathing answer that would have made Emma reply with one of her own as Ruby groaned behind the counter, the words “ _just fuck already”_ coming out in not so quiet whispers that both reporters would feign total deafness to. But this time was different: Emma knew it, Regina knew it and so the brunette shook her head eliciting her brown locks to shudder before falling back into place as she pursed her red lips, the color complimenting the blouse she wore in a way Emma refused to think about. Not even when, she noted after a quick glance, the usual three top buttons were unmade. Which was, she suspected, the only detail the always proper woman standing in front of her, allowed herself as a way to break the code the even sterner Cora Mills had first used when she had opened the newspaper.

Her thoughts were derailed as the brunette, not even glancing around to any of the patrons or Ruby for that matter, put both of her hands at the table’s surface, shoulders square and fixed as she bared her teeth, grinding her words and infusing her voice with the anger that burnt on her pupils.

“How.” She began, and Emma felt her smile widening, her own pride shinning through in the deliberate way she rose her chin, exposing her neck and not missing for a moment the way Regina’s eyes fell to it for a moment, a second that had her clutching the mug’s handle. A detail that, thankfully, Regina seemed to miss as she glanced back, lips curling. “I’ve tried to get Spencer talk to me for the past month.” She threw an accusatory finger at Emma’s notebook and, for a moment, the blonde was almost surprised Regina’s incinerating tone didn’t set it on fire. “How did you do it?”

And there it was. Notebook intact and Spencer’s name on her lips Regina rose to her full height -and then some thanks to the high-heels- and let her arms fall at both sides of her torso, hands still twitching, not quite curled but not relaxed either. She looked even more riled up that Emma had expected her to be and, for that, she chuckled and made a sign to Ruby, the one she knew would make the lanky woman sigh deeply before readying Regina’s usual as the patrons kept on eavesdropping. Some of them even with interest going beyond the usual fight, the surname Regina had so carelessly dropped a powerful one after all.

Not everyday one got to have a private interview with the corrupt lawyer that had been discovered to be working with Rupert Gold, the two men one of the most powerful in the entire town and certainly the direct culprits of huge sums of money always ending up in the hands of the smaller mafia bosses Gold allowed to exist around his own empire. Not everyday one got to make a deal with the devil either, but Emma had been ready for both. Which was something she wasn’t going to disclose in the middle of the café, the fact that she was enjoying all of this a little too much not clouding her mind to that degree.

Precisely because of that and waiting until Ruby approached them with a  glare on her own eyes, the blonde smiled and nodded as the waitress put Regina’s own coffee in front of the older woman, the look that granted her enough to turn everyone into ashes.

Which was something that Ruby almost did as she bite down on her bottom lip, shaking her head and turning, pointedly glancing at Emma before backing away once more.

One of these days the waitress was going to kill Emma for her antics. But not today.

Feigning nonchalance and picking the notebook before fanning herself with it, the blonde kept on looking at Regina, at the untouched coffee and the brunette’s ire.

“I have my ways.”

And she did, she truly did. For every epithet Regina kept using with her every time they were seated in front of each other, trying to come up with ways of writing news in this small town, the brunette knew by then that she had ways, that she had resources, and she planned on showing them all to the brunette. (If the woman allowed her that, not like Emma would ever admit that Ruby’s pleas regarding that them both needed to bang had any real base)

Jaw tightening, the brunette in question growled, the ring she always had dangling from her neck catching the light and winking as she ran a hand through her hair.

“Miss Swan, I’m not joking.”

Emma pursed her lips and put the notebook back in the table, placing it closer to the brunette.

She had her ways and was too stubborn, just like Regina was too proud but despite her need to gloat she was also fair. And she knew that Regina needed the exclusive more than she did after Emma had managed to snatch the coveted interview with Reul Ghorm a few weeks ago in retaliation for Regina managing to be the first who talked with Sheriff Nolan after the first rumors regarding Spencer and Gold’s partnership had made to the public.

Eyes narrowing and refusing to acknowledge the surprised look on Regina’s eyes, the blonde stood and picked up her red leather jacket with one swift move. She wasn’t going to stay and give answers she wasn’t ready to answer.

“Enjoy the reading.” She called just as she rushed past the older woman. “Every squiggly line that will look like an “m” is an “s”, just so you know.”

Yes, Regina was going to ask for her head, she thought as she heard her surname being called again, every patron gaping at her as she opened and closed the door of the café, but she didn’t mind it. Not too much. Not when she knew Regina would probably do something equally big in order to make her be the one who entered into the café with anger and surprise and she truly lived for those moments.

Perhaps, she wondered as she crossed the street, she should truly think on Ruby’s ideas. But not today.

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, this is a one shot. Feel free to direct any screams to the comment section ;)


End file.
